


The Lab Incident

by EventHorizons13



Series: Everyday in Atlantis [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Ancient Technology, Gen, Lab incidents, Rodney McKay being Rodney McKay, Science, a normal day for the scientists of Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23984953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EventHorizons13/pseuds/EventHorizons13
Summary: Jess Atkins had managed for the most part to avoid the notice and the ire of one Doctor Rodney McKay since her arrival in Atlantis. Part of that may be due to the fact that she was a molecular biologist, not a physicist, and he finds it a useless science. Trouble finally comes her way when Rodney demands her help.
Series: Everyday in Atlantis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074773
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Sitting in the lab, I watched the man work at the whiteboard. He was scribbling at a mile a minute, furiously muttering to himself about the problem that he was working on. It was one thing to hear rumors about how Doctor Rodney McKay worked, it was another thing entirely to be able to see it in action. It was impressive. Even when the man made you want to chuck him off the highest tower in the city. He was not only the most brilliant mind in the city, he was the most irritating, abrasive, and condescending man in the entire damn galaxy. 

I had found that out rather quickly upon my arrival to the city. Now, I had confidence in my intellect and capabilities. It wasn’t like I was fresh out of school, even when I had spent years there. I had enough fellowships and research credits under my name to feel that I was fairly good at what I did. That wasn’t to say that I wasn’t nervous or intimidated by coming to another galaxy. It was an awfully big leap of faith. Add onto that the known threat of monsters that could and would quite literally eat your life out of your body and it would have made anyone a little jumpy. It wasn’t like we had those sorts of problems on Earth. The biggest threat was always releasing something that was being worked on, which admittedly would cause some horrible death itself. The opportunity had been too good to pass up though, risk of death or not. 

Apparently though, biology was a useless science and one that was not worth anyone’s time. The words were straight from Rodney McKay’s mouth. Not that it had been said directly to me but I had no doubt that the man would actually say it to my face. I had been around just long enough to witness his anger and the acidic words that could come from him when he was upset. 

He had been passing by the lab I had been given when the comment had come. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by any and I was made aware by all of them that my presence here had denied him another hand in his lab. So, there was enough hostility there based on that alone. I had started off on the wrong foot that was none of my doing. 

There of course had been a surge of indignation after hearing the comment. It was only a natural reaction. I knew better than to open my mouth though. I had faced criticism and condescension in the workplace before. It was impossible not to as a female scientist. We learned to roll with the punches earlier if there was any chance of making it in our respective fields. Ultimately, Rodney was my boss, the man was Head of the Science Division of the city. Dr. Weir may have led the expedition but Dr. McKay ruled over all the scientists. Arguing with him over a pointless comment, no matter how demeaning, could stamp me a one way ticket back to Earth. So I had to bite my tongue and put up with it. 

I managed to avoid his attention and ire for quite some time. That partially had to do with the fact that I was working on things that simply didn’t interest him, that weren’t worth his time. That suited me just fine.

It seemed though that just because I was a molecular biologist, it meant that I was working with Dr. Beckett on his retrovirus, even though I had been initially brought on to be there for wildlife purposes and had my own research to focus on. My specialty wasn’t exactly the human genome, which was what Dr. Beckett was trying to recreate by altering Wraith DNA. It was an ambitious undertaking and fascinating all at the same time. The ethics were a bit shady but we were in another galaxy, facing a problem that couldn’t have been understood on Earth. It was either make this work or become a snack. The latter prospect was enticing. 

Unfortunately, Dr. McKay commandeered me within a few days of me starting the work with Dr. Beckett. He said he needed an extra hand in his lab and my own research, plus that of Dr. Beckett’s, didn’t mean a thing. It was nowhere near as important as what he was doing. His own words. The man likely didn’t know, or bother to pay attention, was more like it, to the fact that I was actually working with Dr. Beckett. The words had left a sour taste in Dr. Beckett’s mouth if the frown and the glare that he leveled at the man was anything to go by.

I was not entirely sure why I was sitting in the lab while he was just muttering and working as he normally would by himself. He had needed an extra hand but I was just sitting on both of mine. I had yet to do anything. If the math on the board was anything to do by, there was no way in hell I was contributing anything scientifically meaningful to the conversation. I loved science and did my best to read about various topics but I was a biologist for a reason. I was more interested in the life around me and what I could see under a microscope than through a telescope. Or by way of equations. I had been decent enough at math but struggled through a more basic physics class. 

I knew that interrupting him could be dangerous for my own health but at the same time, my sanity was on the line. That was more important. I could take a berating. 

“Dr. McKay.” Nothing. He kept muttering, waving his hands about before scribbling something else on the boards. “Dr. McKay. McKay...McKay….Rodney!” I nearly groaned as that seemed to catch his attention. I let out a small sigh, not allowing myself to wither under his harsh glare. If I didn’t have a spine now, he was just going to continually walk all over me. 

“I have been sitting here for nearly an hour. As much as you may enjoy having an audience to watch you work your magic, you said that you needed help. If I am just going to be a decoration in the lab, I would much rather head back to the infirmary and continue my work with Dr. Beckett.” Where I could actually be contributing something but I wasn’t about to make that statement just yet. I was already risking his wraith. I didn’t back down, staring at him expectantly. Internally, I was less steady, waiting for him to blow up. 

“This is much more important than any of that mumbo-jumbo, useless science that you were working on.” 

“I’m sure that Dr. Beckett really appreciates you thinking that the retrovirus is a waste of time.” I deadpanned. It was enough to get a genuine pause out of him, something that caught me by surprise a bit. Well, that was something. I shook my head. My assumption had been right. He hadn’t paid attention to what I was actually doing. “I’m not doing anything other than sitting here. I’m not going to help you make any changes to that math. We both know that. I’m put to better use where I can actually contribute to the science being focused on.” He huffed and set his marker down. There wasn’t another word that came from him, which was unusually and a little unnerving. He moved to the other side of the lab. 

I watched, falling quiet as I wasn’t sure what was happening. Maybe this was the reason that I was here. Or maybe he was moving to grab something to throw at me. I wouldn’t have put it past him. 

“If you insist on interrupting me,” He glared at me again before moving one fo the whiteboards to the side. “All of this is what you are needed here for.” He pointed out. I frowned and pushed up to observe the writing on the board. They didn’t jump out to me right away, not sure what I was looking at but it felt familiar. I tried to understand what I was seeing. 

“What is all of this?”

“That’s what you are here for.” I blinked and glanced back towards him. If he thought that all of this had a biological base, it shouldn’t be in his lab. 

“Why wasn’t this taken to the biology team as a whole?” 

“We don’t even know what it is. I am assuming it is something that you can figure out. It came from that device over there.” He pointed towards a square object that was sitting on the table to the left of us. He didn’t know what it was, assumed it had some biological base, and had it sitting out on a table in the lab. I needed to add idiotic to that list of descriptors. 

“If you think that this is something based in biology,” I pointed at the board. “Then why is it sitting out on the table in a lab without being isolated and contained? We don’t know what it does or what it causes.” He paused and I paled as I noticed something on the board that was recognizable. That was an enzyme. One that we hadn’t figured out the purpose for just yet. If one was on there, there were likely more. 

“That right there is an enzyme. We are working in my lab to figure out what it is for.” 

“Really?” He seemed surprised and then immediately understood the concern that I had had just seconds ago. “What does that mean? Do I need to go see Carson? Am I infected with something again?” 

“Well, clearly you knew that it had something to do with me otherwise I wouldn’t be here! That alone should have been enough for you to not fuck around with it.” That was the frustrating part of the whole thing. The math he was working out probably had to do with the device, figuring out how to make it work rather than know what it did. He had some knowledge, a greater understanding than I did at the moment. But that didn’t mean that he knew the dangers of messing with something. His habit of button pushing was incredibly well known around the city. It was one of the first things that the new arrivals learned after they had walked through the Stargate. That sort of unofficial orientation sort of deal. I had made a promise to myself that I would steer clear entirely when he started prodding new discoveries. Now here I was, drug into it without having an idea. 

“That thing should go into containment now. And no one should touch it...And yes, you should probably go to the infirmary to have Carson check up on you. We don’t know what we are dealing with here but it has some biological component to it. You’ll be ground zero if it has any effects.” He audibly swallowed and his hands fidgeted in front of his chest for a few moments. 

“How someone could be so brilliant and yet so incredibly idiotic is beyond me. If it is some sort of weapon, as a lot of things around here in Atlantis seem to be, we were both exposed.” The words hit me and I looked up towards the ceiling with a groan. I was exposed. I needed to be checked out too. I would be in the same sort of trouble that he would be, forced to face the same fate if it ended up being something terrible. “And now I am exposed to it right along with you. I swear sometimes I don’t know how you have actually made it this far in life. For a man who supposedly has a great sense of self preservation off world, it sure is shit here.” My worry for my job was now overshadowed by my worry for my life. The Ancients had come up with some nasty tech. There had been plenty of others who had died in the city. I didn’t want to be added to those numbers.

“Don’t move. We need to be isolated here. Who else has come in contact with the device.”

“No one.”

“Are you sure?” He rolled his eyes as if it was a stupid question to ask. I wasn’t the one that had touched something that I didn’t understand.

“Yes I’m sure.” I nearly slammed my hand into the com.

“Atkins to Beckett.” I hoped that no one else was listening or we were going to start a mass panic right away.

“Aye lass. How are you making out with Rodney? You need a rescue?” Wonderful choice of words and he had no idea.

“In a way…” I tried not to lose it. “We need isolation here now at McKays lab Carson. Whatever device he found, it has something to do with enzymes, one that I am currently studying in my lab. That was why I am here. I would like to keep it to just the two of us in case that this is something bad.” There was a pause and I waited for several long seconds. Just as I was about to ask if he was still there, he responded.

“Stay put. We are on our way.”

“Thank you.” I rubbed my eyes. Might as well work and try to figure out what the hell I was looking at and what it could be doing to our bodies. It was better safe than sorry. And it was much better for me to focus on the work rather than the panic that was crawling up my spine and making my throat sore. It was my first experience like this. I hadn’t been caught up in any of the other mishaps and near disasters before. I looked towards Rodney again. 

“Carson’s on his way. We are officially isolated. I’m going to need a laptop, which one can I use?” He stared blankly at me for a moment. “Earth to Rodney. I need to figure out what these things are for if I want to be able to give Carson any information. Rather know if I’m going to die or not.” Not that I had been able to figure out what one of them was doing in two weeks. How I was going to solve nearly twenty of them before they could potentially kill us was a mystery. The comment about death though seemed to snap him out of his stupor.

“That one.” He motioned to the laptop that was closest to me. I huffed but nodded, grabbing the device. A couple of taps on the keys and I had pulled up the database. My Ancient wasn’t the strongest but it was enough to get me through what I needed generally. If I really struggled with this, I would have to suck it up and ask Rodney for help. Letting out a slow breath to try and calm myself, I got to work.

******************

It wasn’t too far along by the time Carson and his team showed up.

“You feeling okay Jess?” Rodney made some sort of annoyed sound, clearly offended that Carson was checking on me first. Served him right. 

“Right now. I’ve only made a little headway with this. I could use another set of eyes once you have cleared us, if you don’t mind hanging around.” He was in his hazmat suit and hopefully would be safe. 

“We’ll see what we find.” I nodded and stopped my work so that he could draw my blood. The needle stick was quick, Carson one of the most efficient people that I had ever met when it came to his job. 

I rolled my sleeve down and picked up the laptop to get back to work. These things were about as complex as I had ever seen. I would have normally taken joy in tackling a problem that would challenge me. Right now? I just wanted it figured out so I knew if I was going to end up dying or not. 

McKay was going on and on our things he needed to do before he potentially kicked the bucket. The man had been faced with his own mortality numerous times, from what the reports had said. If it was like this every time? I felt sorry for the medical staff for having to deal with it. I scribbled something else on the board, marking down that one of the items on the board was indeed another enzyme. Luckily, this one was one that we had been able to discover already and we knew exactly what it was for. That one was rather harmless to us, thankfully. It bound to a substrate that interacted with what we assumed was a medication that belonged to the Ancients. I took it as a good sign, needing all the encouragement I could get.


	2. Chapter 2

Someone was standing behind me and the rest of the lab had fallen silent. I paused for a second, my fingers hovering over the keys. It wasn’t Carson. He didn’t generally stand quite that close. He had a little more respect for personal space than that. 

“How’s it coming?” I let out a small sigh and looked back up to the board instead of the man that was hovering just over my shoulder. 

“As fast as I can make it. Everything I found has been an enzyme so far. Some of them we have already played with in the lab. A few are unfamiliar. Surprisingly, the database seems to have a decent amount of information for me to be able to look through. The ones we do know,” She pointed out to two of the top ones on the board. “Are thankfully harmless to use. They are receptor blockers for things that we don’t take but the Ancients did.”

“So it should be harmless.”

“I didn’t say that.” I glanced towards him finally and shook my head. “Just because we have a few that are harmless doesn’t mean that the rest of them are. Who knew what the Ancients had in mind when they created this device. We barely know what half the stuff here does. And every time someone thinks they have a grasp on things, something ends up going wrong.” It had happened more than once and was something that the majority of scientists, hell even the majority of the military at this point, were cautious about. No one wanted to jump the gun and be the one to end up dying a horrible death. 

“But if two of them are…”

“I have no idea what this one does,” I circled it. “We have been working in the lab for well over a week trying to figure it out with no success. Tricky little bastard…” The last part was more mumbled to myself. I was annoyed about it. More so now than I had been before. I enjoyed the challenge but I wanted to figure it out. Now I had a time constraint on me that was worse than any looming deadline for a grant or money. McKay quieted down once more and left me to the work, going back to his equations. If he could figure out how to work it, we would at least be one step ahead of where we were. 

******************

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Carson had come in again and demanded scans to ensure that everything internally looked as good as it did on the bloodwork. That was reassuring at least. One good thing could lead to another. Our health remaining intact for the time being was a burden off of the mind. 

I had managed to identify another three of the twelve on the board. That meant that we knew five of them and out of those we knew what four of them did. That one was still leaving me stumped. There were another seven things on the board to identify. We would be lucky if they were known. I paused when I came to something in the database that I didn’t understand.

I was on my own with McKay. I looked to the ceiling for a moment and knew that I would have to concede if I wanted to be able to keep moving forward. 

“Uh, Dr. McKay.” He didn’t respond, not surprisingly at the moment. I gave it a second to let him finish the thought that he was having to see if he came to after that. I was rewarded for my patience. 

“What?” 

“Your Ancient is a bit better than mine. Do you mind coming to translate this for me?” There was a huff from the other side of the room but footsteps followed. He appeared at my side and I immediately turned the laptop towards him so that he could look at what I was looking at. I pointed out the line that I was stuck on. 

He read it over but remained silent. That may not have been a good thing. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep a question from slipping. He couldn’t have been having a hard time. He flew through the databases, when he bothered to look at them.

“Oh, that’s so not good.” I swallowed hard and closed my eyes.

“What is it now?” 

“We have a problem.” 

“We didn’t before?” 

“That says that,” He pointed from the laptop to the device on the table. “Is meant to alter the DNA of anyone who isn’t an Ancient.” I frowned and looked towards the device. If that was the case, maybe it was meant to introduce the enzymes that would be needed in the body. The Ancients could have been figuring out a way to alter their DNA or even making more Ancients. That wasn’t a comforting thought. They delved way too much into those sort of experiments for me to really be comfortable. 

“Shit…” 

“Yeah.” 

“None of the tests that Carson performs will pick up on that.” 

“No they won’t.” Now we found ourselves in a real pickle. Who knew what they could actually do to us. Likely the technology hadn’t been perfected. They had left a bunch of projects unfinished. Or they had failed their intended purposes and were abandoned. Our bodies could not be capable of handling the changes that the device was trying to make. 

“You have to figure out how to turn it off. I don’t think the enzymes matter much anymore.” I could do the research on it later when we both weren’t facing our demise.

“Oh really?”

“Now isn’t the time McKay.” I motioned for him to go back to work. I sucked in a deep breath, knowing that I might need to try to help him out with the math. I had been useless before and I probably still would be but it was better than twiddling my thumbs while Rodney worked. 

Carson needed to know. 

“Hey Carson.”

“Everything okay Jess?”

“Well, it seems we have stumbled across what the device was designed to do.”

“You don’t sound too happy about that.”

“It’s rewriting our DNA as we speak.”

“What?”

“According to the database that is what it was meant to do. I’m thinking the enzymes were there to be introduced since they don’t seem to occur in anyone or anything other than Ancients naturally. Rodney is working on figuring out how to shut down the device. From there, I’m not sure what we are going to do. It’s a start though.”

“Aye. The others are working on it as well.” My stomach churned for a moment and I didn’t know if it was front what was happening to me or if it was from the nerves and anxiety. 

“Good.” More minds on the problem was a good thing. It meant that if Rodney missed something, which he was entirely capable of doing, someone else might catch it. 

I picked up a marker and moved over to the board. Most of it was gibberish to me and I knew better than to even dare reach out to it. I really needed to wait until he either needed me to write something or asked me a question. 

I didn’t have to wait long as he told me what to write out. It didn’t improve my understanding of it but he paused. His eyes scanned the board and he was still muttering to himself but it was less frantic and more controlled. His mind was still racing a mile a minute but he was onto something. That was obvious in the change in his mannerism. 

He paused and his head cocked to the side a little bit. Someone had to be on his com. Hopefully it was Dr. Zelenka. He was the second most brilliant man here and if there was anyone else who could figure it out, it would be him. Even if McKay didn’t want to admit those sorts of things. 

“Yes but that doesn’t work.” He bit out with frustration. “Because the math is flawed.” He launched into some sort of explanation that I couldn’t follow. Judging by his facial expressions, whoever was on the other end was arguing with him. It definitely had to be Dr. Zelenka. 

“No, no…” He snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute.” He launched himself at the board and scribbled in a furious manner again.

******************

We were approaching the fifth hour of isolation. McKay had tried whatever he had figured out on the device but it only made it emit some sort of light. I took it as a bad sign, thinking that it was likely speeding up the process. 

I had found myself a seat on the floor, staring at the whiteboards. My stomach was turning over constantly at this point. Each movement brought some pain and my palms were getting clammy.

“You don’t look so good Atkins.” I waved it off. He didn’t look to be suffering any ill effects so far. We both had the ATA gene so I couldn’t chalk it up to that.

“I’m fine. Keep working.” I muttered, wanting his focus elsewhere. 

“You gotta tell me if things get bad.” It almost sounded like he cared. 

“I will. Now focus.” My eyes closed and I tried to focus on a breathing exercise in hopes of easing some of the discomfort. In and out in short counts, I kept each action steady. Some of that nausea eased back. 

“Jess?” I hummed. That was Carson and I knew that I had to respond. I opened my eyes to see a concerned Scot hanging over me. “You’re bleeding from the nose.” I blinked and raised a hand to my nose. There was some wetness there and when I pulled my fingers away, they were tinged in red. I wasn’t prone to nosebleeds, something Carson would know from my medical records. I couldn’t really recall a time in my life that I had ever had one. 

“Oh I do. Would you look at that?”

“Come on. You need to get up. We are going to get you on a stretcher.” He reached up and grabbed an arm before helping me get to my feet. 

I settled down on the stretcher, which was much more comfortable than the floor. Carson began checking over again.

“We are going to draw some more blood. You need to relax.”

“I am.” More blood was drawn before he had me lay back. I could hear Rodney groaning. That wasn’t good. It meant that he was beginning to feel it. “They have anything figured out yet?” 

“Ya need to be focusing on yourself at the moment.”

“What am I supposed to do Carson? I am relaxing. The device has to be shut off or others are going to go through the same thing. Containment doesn’t look like it is working. So you can’t move it. And you can’t shut this lab off forever. Who knows the range of that thing. It could be affecting more people than we realize.” There were a million bad scenarios that were running through my head. “How’s Rodney?” 

“He is doing okay lass. Better than you are right now.” 

“That’s good.” He laughed softly. “I’m going to hook you up to some fluids and give you some medicine for that nausea.” I didn’t think that it was going to work if it was stemming from my DNA being changed and my body rejecting the changes but it would make him feel better. Something was better than nothing right now.

More time had passed, though now I was losing track of how fast time was moving. 

“I got it!” Rodney sounded muffled, like he was underwater. He must have still been doing better than I was. “We have to go get the tablet that we found last week. I...I…” A thud broke through everything clear enough. I was so tired. I couldn’t bring myself to bother looking. 

******************

The next thing I knew, there was a beeping beside my heart. That was the sound of a heart monitor. I groaned softly and risked opening my eyes. The familiar setting of the infirmary was around me.

“Nice to see you awake.” That was off to my right and I found Carson, standing there with his hands in his pockets and smiling. “We were starting to get a little worried. Rodney was up yesterday.” 

“I was up two days ago….I just didn’t leave until yesterday.” I was surprised to hear the voice of the other man so close. He was to my left, sitting in a chair and working on his laptop. 

“I take it you figured out how to shut it down and reverse the effects?”

“That would be a brilliant deduction.” I didn’t have it in me to deal with his sarcasm and condescending nature. “Yes we did. And we made sure that it got locked away so that no one would touch it again. What was left of it after we accidentally destroyed it.” I wanted to study the enzymes but I could not say that I was sad to see the thing go. It was too dangerous to keep around. 

“Good.” 

“I uh, managed to save the data that you were working on. Thought you might want to continue the research. I had it sent to your lab.” I looked at Carson, wanting him to confirm that it was indeed Rodney McKay sitting next to me. He just shook his head with a smile. 

“Thank you Dr. McKay.”

“We’ll need to watch you for another day before I can let you go from here Jess. We need to make sure that you are okay now that you are awake. Everything is looking normal but just to be on the safe side.”

“Course. That probably means restricted duty right?”

“Aye lass. You aren’t getting your tablet or laptop while you are here. You need to rest. Your body has gone through a lot in a short amount of time. Rodney is only working because it seems he can’t follow a doctor’s orders.” His tone was more firm as he shot a look at McKay, who in turn just waved a hand. 

“Thanks Carson.” 

“Get some rest.” I turned my attention back to McKay as Carson moved away. He was standing up and closing his laptop.

“Glad to see you awake Atkins. I have to be getting back to my lab.” That wasn’t surprising. I thought he would have been bunkered down in there to begin with. I hadn’t expected to ever wake up and see him beside me in the infirmary. 

“Right. Thanks again Dr. McKay.” He looked down at me for a brief moment, something odd passing over his face before he nodded and quickly scurried away from the bed. 


End file.
